The Local Government Chronicle predicted that the Conservatives would have net losses of a 1,000 or the 5,000 Council seats defended yesterday. The voters failed to fall into line with the expert modelling prepared for them by Rallings and Thrasher. Instead Medway remains Conservative.

I always thought this a bit gloomy as it failed to take account of gains from the Lib Dems offsetting losses to Labour. So I vaguely expected that we would lose a 1,000 seats to Labour but gain 500 from the Lib Dems. Then we could say: "Look we were predicted to be down 1,000 seats overall but we were only down 500."

What I had not expected with nearly half the results in was for us to have more councillors and more councils.

Earlier The Times said that the Conservatives "will lose the most – around 900 seats and 35 councils." Notye that use of the word "will."

The Independent said that Labour was "on track" to make 1,000 net gains. But they warned this was just mean they had got back to where they were in 1999 – a year Conservatives made huge gains. Anything short of that would be a "failure."

"Tories face poll rout," the Sunday Mirror told its readers five days ago.